04 November 2012

He offered prayers to the One on High,that he might find shelter before evening,but when he clambered up along the pass,it seemed as if there were no way down.

The sombre artist had engravedthe crests of the pines in the depths of the ravine,the swell of boulders cloaked in snow,where yesterday the landslide had feasted.

The snow flew on, and thoughts flew back,a St. Bernard lumbered into his dreamwith a certain drink, so to slip sweetlyinto sound sleep, smothered by the snow.

2

The windfallen brush, clad in tatters,guards the marsh’s pools and moss,and a future saint of Christianitystopped short in the bushes and drops his arbalest.

He’s even opened his mouth slightly,rubs his brow, not believing his eyes,having seen the shining revelation of the crossbetween the antlers of the trustful animal.

And how does the engraver represent the light?By what is around the warp and woof of the strokes,while the light itself and cross are onlythe trace of the absence of its faint touch.

3

A stroke – this sloop is listing too steeply.The sail is ripped to shreds. The cliffs are too close.Murk. Storm. Wind. Rain. And too close the shore,with its seaweed, its boulders, its spray.

A stroke is murk. A stroke is storm. A stroke is rain. A stroke the howl of wind.The steep list. The steep shore. All the cliffs are too steep.Only one tiny minute dot of light:the porthole of the stern cabin.

There one can see a tiny passenger,as if he notices nothing,he’s laid a book before him,it lies there, and he reads it.

4

A snake, coiling upon itself in a pit,and a body intertwined with another body, –the engraver, not up to Doré,must have made the coils too heavy.

Tilt the picture, even turn yourself about,but something remains strange about the coils,you can’t figure out whether the picture’sdownward or upward spirals fill it more powerfully.

How, O artist, did you pull it off?What’s the difference, above or below! When the tangleof these interwoven bodies snaps back to shape:the spool of Heaven and the funnel of Hell.

5

There’s frost on the windows and ice in the canals,and autos cough as if caught cold,Europe sends its last warmthto her frontier city, on the edge of the tundra.

There the city lights barely savethe skaters in the twilight.Everyone knows, on Christmas Evedangerous visitations are possible.

A rosebush is transformed into an icebush.While under the window, at the very edge of the engraving,sullen Lapps drive their reindeer teams.

27 September 2012

I dreamed of a flat looking out on the palace, on the Neva,on that golden needle a junkie might see in his dreams.At first I dreamed I was living there, in that flat.But then I dreamed that this place was beyond my means.

I dreamed (getting riled) that in this place there would livethieving bureaucrats, lickspittle courtiers, criminal scum,or pop-music trash. I dreamed it was time to leave.But then I dreamed that a dream may well be redone.

And then in this dream I went to the window once more,and beneath me saw clouds, and golden domes and spires,and then in this dream I dreamed I would fall asleep here,being so high up, with the lift still not authorised.